**DONE**United Federation of Planets captured Klingon Bird of Prey

[zenrat]

"Engage"      Yeah, bruh!!! I'm watching TNG tonight as luck would have it. lmao    I love Picard. ......   I do not love the Series, 'Picard.'    (seriously, it sucks really bad)

I enjoyed Picard.  They have taken Star Trek away from the shiny pristine clean universe it usually lives in and taken it to a dirty used one more akin to that of Star Wars or Firefly.

[TheChronicOne]

I just don't like dark, depressing, ultra violent, war fight fight fight war war kill kill kill kill suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide kill murder depression dark broody depressing depressing films. It's a personal thing to me. What I liked about Star Trek (up until recently, although I do enjoy Disco and Lower Decks for sure!  )  but elements of Disco and ALL of Picard almost is this miserable place that tells us rather than working out our problems and maturing as a race we've learned nothing and the space we inhabit is just a miserable and mismanaged as possible. Also, the thing with Picard is so much of it made no sense and the characters were poorly written and had the depth of a kiddie pool.

There's an hour and a half long review of it all by Red Letter Media as "Plinkett" that pretty much nails everything I think about it. I particularly like the last 15-20 minutes or so because he sums it up and really drives home the point that this... isn't Star Trek and by god, it's not Science Fiction by any stretch. Throwing poorly written drama into space does not a Science Fiction programme make, and I like Science Fiction. And I liked Star Trek because it gave me hope instead of making me want to off myelf. Just my opinion, though!    And I certainly don't bemoan folks that are into the gritty dark stuff.... it's just a personal preference of mine that I don't like. I hated Stargate Universe for the same reason.   

[Rick Lowe]

Y'know, I think you've put into words the feelings I have about a lot of the current crop of 'SyFy'. And modern TV in general.

Once Upon A Time, Sci-Fi was supposed to be a hopeful, 'look at what we can become'-type of thing, but the trend and quest for 'Realism' has had this effect that I'm not entirely happy about.
While I agree that sometimes Humans Will Be Humans, surely if we've lasted long enough to get out into the wider universe then we've learned to work together and put aside petty squabbles.

Particularly if there are bigger and badder threats that we need to work together to overcome.

Having said all the above, I loved 'Firefly' and bemoan it's loss, so at least I've got inconsistency going for me...

Wow, pontifical much for a Monday morning?

[TheChronicOne]

It's a fun little diversion from the topic. I love thread drift, honestly.       I love Firefly, too! Not sure what it is, but.... it has its dark elements but it's just general "brighter" in mood and tone and even visually....   The characters were fleshed out and lovable and the bad stuff mainly came from outside threats rather than from within whereas in a lot of the current Sci Fi stuff... like you said... there ARE no "good guys. "  Even the "good guys" are "bad" and everyone is deceitful, treacherous, suicidal, depressed, drunken, high on drugs, scheming, backstabbing, etc. type of people. I have problems with depression and this stuff makes it worse...   

It's a lot like the whole "murder porn" phenomenon. Like....  a show over here, 48 hours, it's all about death and gloom and... the whole production is sullen and downtrodden and I while I do find such things interesting (I also admit to liking crime procedurals... in large part because the episodes are standalone and there isn't heavy arcing) I normally have to turn it off and try to find something more hopeful to watch. This is becomming more and more difficult as time passes. I find myself watching a lot of the same old stuff I have a million times before but I'm getting burned out on it all and it's to the point where I can't ever find decent Sci Fi to watch and just shows in general are partially the same. I've resorted to sitcoms and stuff. Found some good ones, though! Bob Heart Abishola, Young Sheldon, The Neighborhood.. are three of my favorites. 

[Rick Lowe]

Yeah, I agree. I like watching some of this stuff, admittedly, but a steady stream of it, where there aren't any (or many) redeeming qualities to the characters? And where the 'good guys' have the ethics of a certain Orange Buffoon? Nuh - count me out.
There is a time and place for 'This has to be done, I'm not comfortable with it, but if not me then who?' but when 'knock them off to get them out of my way' is the default mode of a character? Nope.

If I want Dark And Gritty, Real Life Drama I will watch the evening News.
If I want an escape from all that, I will go and watch something like Planes or Shrek, or read a Louis L'Amour or Georgette Heyer. Formulaic, yes. Ticking all the boxes, sure.
But it's meant as an escape. Real life has enough of that sort of stuff going on that I don't need it intruding into my leisure time.

[TheChronicOne]

Hear, here!   


With less that three hours to spare, I finished the BoP. It gave me some hell right at the end when I was putting it all together and adjusting the wings up and down... something or other was prying the fuselage halves apart if I put them in the landing configuration. I had to trim the hinges prior to installation as well. But.. still, this landing configuration problem occurred so I had to do some clever clamping and gluing.... I also did some late filing with the large wood file to help matters and by time it was done, it all works pretty well! The transfers were a bit rough, as well, because they are so tiny but I found places to put markings so thank God for that. lmao    































I'll have to sift through these and determine which ones I like best, then post them in the finished builds thread, and that should be the finish the whole affair.

Q'pla!!




OH yeah.... size reference! Even completed the whole thing is held in the palm of your hand!

[Rick Lowe]

majQa'! yISaH!  (with ribbed forehead)

Cute Li'l thang, as I mentioned before.

Just thinking, you could have named it the "USS H.M.S. Bounty"...

no?
Ah well, it had to be said... 

[TheChronicOne]

I had the Bounty in mind at the end when I started to put decals on.     Hell, that's not a bad idea, really...... perhaps the back story to this could be "instead of letting it sink to the bottom of San Fran Bay and remain there, Starfleet retrieved it and made this."  Genius!!!!   Good job, now we have a back story, and a damned good one at that. Fits the era, too.... "movies era" is what I was going for as that's the time that makes the most sense and also fits the Starfleet markings I used.

[zenrat]

Fantastic.  You've done an excellent job there Brad C.




Re Picard and Sci Fi in general, if we all liked the same things then life would be much more boring.  Trouble is some people take it personally when you disagree with their tastes.
I do though  have to disagree with Ricks statement that "Once Upon A Time, Sci-Fi was supposed to be a hopeful, 'look at what we can become'-type of thing".  There has always been darkness and light in Sci Fi.  War of the Worlds and The Time Machine both spring to mind as examples of the dark side.

[Rick Lowe]

Fantastic.  You've done an excellent job there Brad C.




Re Picard and Sci Fi in general, if we all liked the same things then life would be much more boring.  Trouble is some people take it personally when you disagree with their tastes.
I do though  have to disagree with Ricks statement that "Once Upon A Time, Sci-Fi was supposed to be a hopeful, 'look at what we can become'-type of thing".  There has always been darkness and light in Sci Fi.  War of the Worlds and The Time Machine both spring to mind as examples of the dark side.

Agree with that, having had a while to think on it. Yeah, the Dystopian was/is a staple. The Rugged Individual Triumphing Over Impossible Odds or somesuch...
I guess I am speaking from the perspective of what I think it (Star Trek) should be - as it was originally intended to be.

And like model making, sci fi is a large enough hobby/genre to cater for all tastes.
And you're right too, they're our own personal opinions and not worth getting bent out of shape over.

[Rick Lowe]

I had the Bounty in mind at the end when I started to put decals on.     Hell, that's not a bad idea, really...... perhaps the back story to this could be "instead of letting it sink to the bottom of San Fran Bay and remain there, Starfleet retrieved it and made this."  Genius!!!!   Good job, now we have a back story, and a damned good one at that. Fits the era, too.... "movies era" is what I was going for as that's the time that makes the most sense and also fits the Starfleet markings I used.

Glad I could help again. 

And it's only a paint job... if Section 39 (or whatever they call themselves this Financial Year) decided they needed something for the odd covert op, that's their vessel right there...

[NARSES2]

That's come out very well mate and I'm still trying to grasp how small it is 

Some great photos in there as well.

As for Sci-Fi ? When I was reading it a lot, eons ago, my favourites were the likes of the Skylark and Lensman books by E E Doc Smith. Guess I'm on the soft side of the genre 

[TheChronicOne]

Thanks y'all! I thought a little more about it myself and I think maybe my displeasure isn't with the dark situations in general but dark people and needless displays of self inflicted misery. In War of The Worlds, the situation was dire but we didn't have miserable emo people roaming the streets weeping, story arcs about who is having sex with who and who is cheating and doing soap opera stuff and blowing their brains out. The darkness came from an outside place and was meant to be vanquished, not glorified.

Conflict and typical second act bouts of hopelessness are natural. The thing with a lot of modern science fiction is that it focuses so heavily on all this "woe is me" stuff that it straight up isn't sci fi. It's weepy emo soap opera set in space... Stargate Universe is a prime example of this. Suddenly it was about 5% sci fi and NOTHING like the glorious Science Fiction that Stargate SG1 was. SG1 had tons of dark situations but it wasn't internalized and it came from outside threats rather than self inflicted. They explored and did science. SGU was 95% drama of the human conflict type and everyone was back stabby and suicidal and people cheating on their spouses and blah blah blah. Like I said though, I do not bemoan people for liking the dark gritty suicidal soap opera stuff but it's just not for me.

I also do not like country music.. .... .....   

[Mossie]

Lovely little thing. 

I like the colours you've chosen, sets it apart from the dull Star Fleet schemes.

[DogfighterZen]

I'm not much of a Star Trek fan but i do like the movies and the ships. The Bird of prey has always been one of my favorite ships and although i'm not a fan of many colors, i like what you did with it. 
I watched every episode of SGU in hopes of it getting better towards the end but it got so boring with all the drama around the characters. I can take a bit of it but still, it becomes boring after an episode or two. No wonder people lost interest and the show got cancelled.